Church Of Scotland Research Articles

The sacred and the secular: examining the role of accounting in the religious context

PurposeThis paper explores the role of accounting in a religious setting and evaluates the sacred‐secular divide developed by Laughlin and Booth who suggested that accounting is antithetical to religious values, embodying the secular as opposed to the sacred. Yet Christian thinkers such as Wesley and Neibuhr reject this position and indicate the accounting and financial issues do not necessarily conflict with religious values.Design/methodology/approachThis paper explores narratives drawn from the Church of Scotland, the life and practices of Charles Wesley and the Christian doctrine of stewardship as a way of determining the verisimilitude of the “accounting as secular” claim.FindingsThese accounts and individual perceptions drawn from the Church of Scotland were more consistent with the concept of a jurisdictional conflict between accountants and clergy than a sacred‐secular divide. The life of John Wesley and the doctrine of stewardship show that accounting can be part of practices of spirituality. Sacred or secular accounting was found to be an issue of perception.Research limitations/implicationsThere is scope for future research into perceptions of accounting and the role(s) of accounting in sacred spaces.Originality/valueThis paper highlights the sacred role and aspects to accounting.

The Religious Objections and Military Opposition to Anesthetics, 1846–1848

More than four years before the anesthetic first published in the medical literature, on March 30, 1843, Crawford Williamson Long administered sulfuric ether for the excision of a neck cyst on a patient in Jefferson, Georgia.1 On October 16, 1846, William Thomas Green Morton (1819-1868) used sulfuric ether to anesthetize a patient at the Massachusetts General Hospital. Bigelow’s first published account of anesthesia greatly influenced the spread of volatile anesthesia.2 Within months anesthesia had been used throughout Europe and had even made its way to China.3 The next year on January 19, 1847 Sir James Young Simpson (1811-1870) first used sulfuric ether during the management of labor and childbirth in Edinburgh, Scotland.4 The first wartime use of anesthesia took place later that year on March 29, 1847, in Vera Cruz, Mexico, when Edward H. Barton administered sulfuric ether during the amputation of a gangrenous lower limb performed on a civilian teamster who had suffered an accidental gunshot wound during the MexicanAmerican War (1846-1848).5 Simpson would make a further lasting contribution to medicine in the final months of 1847 by introducing a new volatile agent to clinical practice, chloroform.6 From the beginning, the introduction of inhaled anesthesia would be controversial. In two areas of perennial human suffering, childbirth and warfare, where the potential for alleviation was greatest, acceptance of this new technique was not immediate. This essay presents a description of two physicians of the Victorian period, Scottish obstetrician James Young Simpson and American Army military surgeon John Porter. Each, after seeing the effects of anesthesia on the suffering of surgical patients came to a very different conclusion. Their subsequent work and writing strove for divergent ends; one embraced the use of volatile agents; the other deplored their use. Arguments against the use of anesthesia in British obstetrics ranged from questioning the safety of the new volatile agents for mother and fetus to challenging the theological basis for altering the birthing process. Although objections on the basis of safety are arguably the most demonstrable, as attested by the number of written accounts and historical treatment, the objections on the basis of religion described by Simpson are not as easily demonstrated but became a matter of intense interest during the twentieth century. Nearing the year 2000, the early religious opposition to anesthesia became a controversy in its own right as historical researchers sought original written sources.8 Opposition to the military use of anesthetics in the United States was based on Porter’s anecdotal concepts regarding bleeding and wound healing and was promulgated by a few physicians in the hierarchy of the U.S. Army Medical Corps who controlled policy at military hospitals. As reports of the use of volatile agents entered the collective professional consciousness of physicians and surgeons throughout the world, reactions were mixed. Proponents of anesthesia emerged, none more prominent than the energetic Scottish obstetrician, James Young Simpson. Remarkably, he first entered the University of Edinburgh at age 14 in 1825.8 Elected Chair of Midwifery at the University of Edinburgh in 1840, he was a popular lecturer on medical topics predominantly, but had expertise in archaeology as well. He was said to be the busiest obstetrician in Scotland,9 and in 1847, the year of his great innovations, he was named one of Her Majesty’s Physicians in Scotland.10 Simpson lived in a society immersed in religion and yet shaped by ideas of the Enlightenment period. His daily interactions were among people whose culture was shaped by two forces, an emerging secular liberalism that was by mid-century strong enough to realize the election of a nonChristian born prime minister, Benjamin Disraeli, and the enduring influence of the established Churches of Scotland and England, headed by the British Monarch. The idea of early religious opposition to anesthesia animated Simpson’s professional efforts to popularize the ether and chloroform techniques. In December, 1847, he produced a thought-provoking treatise, Answer to the Religious Objections Advanced Against the Employment of Anaesthetic Agents in Midwifery and Surgery. He wrote the pamphlet because he had: “during the last few months, often heard patients and others strongly object to the superinduction of anaesthesia in labour, by the inhalation of Ether or Chloroform, on the assumed ground, that an immunity from the pain during parturition was contrary to religion and the express commands of Scripture. Not a few medical men have, I know, joined in this same objection; and have refused to relieve their patients from the agonies of childbirth, on the allegation that they believed that their employment of suitable

A question of merit: John Hutton Balfour, Joseph Hooker and the ‘concussion’ over the Edinburgh chair of botany

In 1845, Robert Graham’s death created a vacancy for the traditionally dual appointment to the University of Edinburgh’s chair of botany and the Regius Keepership of the Edinburgh Royal Botanic Garden. John Hutton Balfour and Joseph Hooker emerged as the leading candidates. The contest quickly became embroiled in long running controversies over the nature and control of Scottish university education at a time of particular social and political tension after a recent schism in Church of Scotland. The politics of the appointment were complicated by the fact that the Edinburgh Town Council (which preferred Balfour) chose the chair while the keepership was under the patronage of the Westminster government (which preferred Hooker). Balfour eventually emerged triumphant after a bitter campaign marked on all sides by intense politicking. The struggle to replace Graham provides a case study in how Victorian men of science adapted their aspirations to the practical realities of life in industrial, reforming, imperial, multinational Britain.

Churches for a Changing Liturgy: Gillespie, Kidd & Coia and the Second Vatican Council

The relationship of Modernism in architecture with the symbolic needs of church- building was fraught with the dangers of betrayal: whether the architect indulged in personal spiritual expression, or used traditional forms, he could be accused of stylistic excess; if he applied a reductive functionalism, the result could be faulted as failing the brief. After the Second World War, expression and tradition were gradually admitted into Modernism to expand and enrich its vocabulary, and the limits of functionalism were reassessed. Churches were a field in which architects of the Modern Movement could explore their new concerns with poetic form and monumentality, in contrast to the more prosaic jobs in housing, schools, and so on; but few architects had the chance to work on churches in quite the same volume as the more pressing post-war building tasks. One firm of architects with an exceptional opportunity was Gillespie, Kidd & Coia, responsible for a series of Roman Catholic churches in Scotland, ‘the finest body of post-war church building in Britain’, according to Elain Harwood.1 This work has attracted attention from architectural historians before, particularly for its rich and humane interpretation of sacred architecture.

Philosopher-King: Nechtan mac Der-Ilei

Without doubt one of the more famous events in the progress of the con troversy over the dating of Easter which chronically vexed the churches of Britain and Ireland between the late sixth and the late eighth centu ries is the transfer ral of his kingdom by Nechtan or Naiton, who was king of the Picts roughly between 706x713 and 729, to the so-called 'Roman' system of calculating the date of Easter. It is famous partly because Bede devotes a great deal of attention to it, and we will return to his story shortly. For advocates of the confrontational narrative of seventhand eighth-century insular church history, it also forms a climactic final episode. After the struggles and insults of the 'Synod of Whitby' in 664, Bede's Naiton brings an end to the tale, spurning the Columban church, kicking them and Celtic Christianity out of his kingdom, and embracing the Roman system, with all its attendant evils. The Columban church, now isolated, has no option but to change also. This explanation is dramatically satisfying, but historically less so. Like so much of the history of the early church in Scotland, it is bound up with modern political and religious factionalism. Was Naiton an English imperialist flunky? A Romanist stooge, allowing the authority of the Pope and St Peter into his realm? Or, conversely, a Pictish nationalist, rejecting the insidious Irish influences of the Celtic church? Or was he more a creation of Bede's exegetical mind bringing an 'end to history' in a biblically satisfying way? This article does not set out to assess the effect of his actions on the church, or their motivations?that will have to await a separate occasion. Rather, it examines the king and his back ground, in order to get a firmer sense of the context, genealogical, cul tural and political, in which his reform took place.1 Nevertheless, it is well worth first looking at Bede's testimony con cerning Naiton for what it says. Bede's description of the king, both in his own words, and in the words he quotes from his abbot, Ceolfrith's

Actuarial Issues in Insurance on Slaves in the United States South

In 2000 several activist groups raised the possibility of suing for reparations from life insurance companies that profited from the business of slavery, and a prominent figure in this campaign is attorney Deadria Farmer-Paellmann. (1) Targeted were companies that had a long history of writing life insurance policies on slaves, and legal actions have begun to move forward. (2) Aetna of Hartford became a target based on fragmentary evidence of slave life insurance policies written by the company's agents. It is well known that York Life insured slaves. William Clendenin in The Bible of Life Insurance, published in 1932, noted that New York Life insured slaves, beginning in May, 1845--and that of its first 1,000 policies over one-third were on the lives of [slaves]. In fact, this company's first death claim was under a slave policy. (3) SB 2199 passed by the California legislature in 2000 required that all firms selling life insurance in that state provide copies of all archived material related to slave Three companies--Aetna, American International Group (AIG), and York Life--provided detailed information on individual policies. The photocopied records have been made available to the public at several locations in California, and they allow us to examine in this essay certain actuarial issues. (4) The records supplied by these three companies cannot be certified as a random or representative sample. If these data are indeed representative, they would imply that insurers made a very thin profit or perhaps even lost money on slave These data provide no evidence that the insurers made large profits on slave The failure to make large profits in no way mitigates the ethical lapse in becoming involved in the practice in the first place. The ethical issues present difficulties well beyond the scope of this special report. The likelihood of lawsuits related to reparations is high, and it is important for us to state two disclaimers. First, neither of the authors is involved in the legal actions, and neither has been consulted to date by any of the parties involved. Second, the mother of one of the authors (Gary Simon) was a refugee from Nazi Germany, and she received post-war reparations. It is impossible to determine now the amount of those reparations, but the figure is likely to be between $2,000 and $10,000. THE HISTORY OF LIFE INSURANCE Life insurance is today a common financial product, but it was not widely used until relatively late in history. The Romans had a sufficiently stable society that Ulpian was able to construct a rudimentary life table in about 200 A.D., although there is some uncertainty as to its exact uses. (5) We have no new evidence of life insurance until the late Middle Ages. The oldest life insurance contract for which we have evidence was issued in 1583. The English astronomer Edmund Halley went to Silesia to study the church records that allowed him in 1693 to prepare the first modern life table. (6) Halley is, of course, far better known for the comet that bears his name. Various European royal edicts from 1570 to 1681 banned the selling of life insurance as commercializing a transaction that was thought to be the proper concern only of God. (7) The legitimizing of life insurance took place first in the British Isles, through the Church of Scotland's annuity plan for widows of deceased clergymen. (8) Similar plans emerged among the Presby terian and Episcopal clergy in Philadelphia and York in around 1750. (9) Life insurance was also a part of the slave trade, although the policies would more properly be described as insurance. We make this distinction between life and property insurance for enslaved individuals because: (1) the beneficiary upon the death of the slave was never the slave's family; (2) the face amount of the policy was directly linked to the market value of the slave; (3) the term of the policy was short, nearly always one year or less. …

Scottish Civil Society and Devolution: The New Case for Ronald Preston's Defence of Middle Axioms

Ronald Preston defended the middle axiom approach to doing Christian social ethics developed by J. H. Oldham for the 1937 ‘Life and Work’ conference. Preston argued that middle axioms continue to offer the churches a relevant ecumenical method. Middle axions has since been subject to fundamental criticism by ethicists such as Duncan Forrester. It will be argued that a case study of the Church of Scotland's contribution to the devolution debate, as part of Scottish civil society, supports Preston's defence of the middle axiom approach as a relevant form of political engagement in the new context of local-global politics.

Unity and Concord: An Early Anglican ‘Communion’

ABSTRACTThe Anglican Communion did not come into being solely as a geographical extension of the Church of England. An agreement between episcopalian churches in Scotland and America in the eighteenth century represents a significant point in the development of Communion (koinonia) for Anglican ecclesiology. This essay traces the circumstances and the content of the agreement as an example of the way in which Anglicans have come, and are coming, to reconceive the way in which they participate in a global fellowship within the universal church of Jesus Christ.

Human Embryos, Clones and Public Policy: A Critique of the Church Of Scotland's Views

The thinking of the Church on human embryos is presented in Pre-conceived Ideas: A Christian Perspective of IVF and Embryology (1996), which is the report of the Study Group on Human Fertilisation and Embryology of the Board of Social Responsibility of the Church of Scotland. 2 The position of

The Changing Legal Framework of Establishment

This article looks closely at the legal nature of Establishment, both in England and North of the Border. The legal material shows that the two cases are very different. The Ace od Supermacy 1558 and related legislation enable the English church's porition to be presented so as to meke it one aspect of the State, and tetwntieth-century case-law has tended to confirm that understanding. The Scottish kirk enjoys statutory autonomy under the Church of Scotland Act 1921, and again case-law emphasises the reality of its exemption from some of the usual jurisdiction of the secular authorities and courts (though its scope may be becoming less clear-cut in the light of developments within the European Community). The author asks how, in the English context, the legal analysis relates to the reality of the English situation, as seen through the insights of other disciplines, to the role of the Church of England nationally and locally, and to the, sometimes confrontational, relationship between Synod and Parliament.

Episcopal Lineage: A Theological Reflection on Blake v Associated Newspapers Ltd

Mathew's varied ecclesiastical progress presents a fascinating case study of an episcopate detached from a main-stream Christian community and alerts us to the danger of solely considering ‘episcopal lineage‘ as the litmus test for apostolicity. Mathew was born in France in 1852 and baptised a Roman Catholic; due to his mother's scruples he was soon re-baptised in the Anglican Church. He studied for the ministry in the Episcopal Church of Scotland, but sought baptism again in the Church of Rome, into which he was ordained as a priest in Glasgow in 1877. He became a Dominican in 1878, but only persevered a year, moving around a number of Catholic dioceses: Newcastle, Plymouth, Nottingham and Clifton. Here he came across immorality, and became a Unitarian. He next turned to the Church of England and the Diocese of London, but was soon in trouble for officiating without a licence. In 1890 he put forward his claim to Garter King of Arms for the title of 4th Earl of Llandaff of Thomastown, Co. Tipperary. He renounced the Church of England in 1899 because of vice. After founding a zoo in Brighton, which went bankrupt, he appeared in court in connection with a charge of embezzlement. He then became a Roman Catholic again, now as a layman.

Scottish missionaries and the end of empire: the case of Nyasaland*

Abstract In 1960 Church of Scotland missionaries in the British colony of Nyasaland ostensibly fulfilled their commitment to transition from ‘mission’ to ‘Church’. This process of transition was, however, marked by ambiguity, much of which related to Nyasaland's political status. Opinion within the missions and the Church of Scotland differed greatly as to whether (and for how long) colonial rule should continue. Controversy on the matter ranged beyond Nyasaland and Scotland, with missionary activities attracting the attention not only of colonial and imperial governments but of a range of unofficial but interested groups and religious organizations. This article examines one important aspect of the ambiguous missionary response to the ‘end of empire’ in British colonial Africa.

IDENTITY AND PURPOSE RENEWED: THE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND AND WORLDWIDE MISSION IN THE 21ST CENTURY

International Review of MissionVolume 92, Issue 366 p. 393-405 IDENTITY AND PURPOSE RENEWED: THE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND AND WORLDWIDE MISSION IN THE 21ST CENTURY Kenneth R. Ross, Kenneth R. Ross Kenneth R. Ross, formerly Professor of Theology at the University of Malawi, is General Secretary of the Church of Scotland Board of World Mission.Search for more papers by this author Kenneth R. Ross, Kenneth R. Ross Kenneth R. Ross, formerly Professor of Theology at the University of Malawi, is General Secretary of the Church of Scotland Board of World Mission.Search for more papers by this author First published: 25 March 2009 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1758-6631.2003.tb00413.x Read the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat Volume92, Issue366July 2003Pages 393-405 RelatedInformation

The Beginnings of Democratic Control of Local Education in Scotland

At a time when forms of increased democratic representation in local government have become the subject of contemporary concern, it is interesting to consider the historical beginnings in the nineteenth century of wider local representation. The then desire for such representation found its most effective expression in the elections that began in 1873 for local school boards, which surpassed all other existing forms of election to local government in their criteria for both the electors and the candidates, and above all in the method of voting. The situation that gave rise to the introduction of these local boards was the need, in response to various economic, social, and party political pressures in the mid-nineteenth century, to replace the socially narrow control of schools and their teachers that had been exercised for 300 years by local landowners and local ministers of the Church of Scotland. With changing views about the part that should be played in public affairs by those who were being governed, there was pressure to extend the system of control of schools, especially by increasing representation of the numerous and diverse local groups who had come to take an interest in the schooling of their children, and were no longer satisfied to leave such education to the patriarchal control of traditional interests. That traditional control was understandable enough – and had been legitimate enough – in the social circumstances of the centuries that followed the Protestant Reformation. Since the seventeenth century, Parliament had made the local landowners (heritors) legally and financially responsible for the provision in each parish not only of a church but also of a school building, for the choice of a qualified schoolmaster, and for supplying an adequate salary to maintain him. It had also encouraged, and provided for, the supervisory interest of one religious denomination in the acceptability of the faith, morals, learning and conduct of the teachers. In Reformation thinking, the local church and the local school were to exercise complementary functions in seeking to

No tradition, no civilization

Having lived in Europe for the last forty years, I have enjoyed the experience of my historical and cultural roots. My residence of the last thirty-five years, for example, was constructed the year that the Church of Scotland was founded, that Madrid became the capital of Spain, and the tobacco plant was imported to Western Europe by Jean Nicot. The buildings in my immediate Roman neighbourhood are much older. The Colonna Palace, half a block away from my front door, was described by the Italian humanist Petrarch (1304-1374). The final discovery-scene of ‘Roman Holiday’ was filmed there.Living in Europe is living in a place where the stones speak; however, if you have not done your homework, you will not understand what they are saying. Returning annually for three months to the United States, I have the experience of what the anti-Western-Civilization lobby would call ‘freedom’ from the obscurantism and oppressive burdens of a democratic Christian—especially Roman Catholic—tradition. I can enjoy the ‘freedom’ of a world without history, tradition and roots, the world of what Vance Packard called ‘fun culture,’ the realm of a superior and untethered virtual reality. In short, I return to a place where both the educational system and mass media assiduously avoid the ‘homework’ without which we cannot hear or understand what the stones of our European heritage have to tell us.An expatriate American author and actor living in Rome expressed his dismay to me, as far back as the early sixties, about the cultural tabula rasa that radically handicapped young Americans for understanding or appreciating their Roman experience in churches where they had no idea of what the religious paintings and sculpture represented because they were culturally un-equipped for any meaningful experience.

The “Protective State” Approach to the “Productive State” in The Wealth of Nations: The Odd Case of Lay Patronage

From Jacob Viner (1927) to David A. Reisman (1998), Adam Smith's departures from an advocacy of laissez-faire in The Wealth of Nations have been interpreted by a number of scholars. In this paper, we examine one of the oddest, and perhaps least noticed, of those departures. That was Smith's defense of the civil law of lay patronage in the established Presbyterian Church of Scotland, which appears in his discussion of the social benefits and potential social costs of institutions for religious instruction. A lay patron was a non-cleric individual who held the right under civil law to select the minister of a local parish church. In Smith's time, roughly two-thirds of the lay patrons in Scotland were wealthy landowners and one-third were crown officials. In addition, municipal corporations (cities) and universities held some patronage rights.

Not Quite an Insider—A Scottish Perspective on a Future Coronation

Post devolution, Scotland is ‘a bit different’, but how does that relate to a coronation? A Scottish sense of exclusion from the English establishment's assumptions of UK dominance might be a way into developing forms that are more widely inclusive. In this article, two distinctively Scottish models—of sovereignty and of being a national church—are offered as bases for exploring the shape of a coronation that tries to express who we all are. The theological understanding of sovereignty which was a key contribution from the churches to the debate on devolution sees the sovereignty of God entrusted to the community of the realm, and entrusted by that community to whatever institutions they deem appropriate; this might be a starting point for planning a coronation. The self-understanding of the Church of Scotland as a national church cherishing its independence from state control and with less ‘stake’ in the monarchy might prompt a different church-state relationship to be expressed in a coronation.

Christian Doctrine and Judicial Review: The Free Church Case Revisited

In the latter part of the nineteenth century there were attempts to unite the various bodies which had split off from the Church of Scotland in the previous hundred years. In particular, there were great hopes for a union between the United Presbyterian Church [UPC] and the Free Church of Scotland [FC].

Female Piety in Eighteenth-Century Scotland

Evidence from intimate accounts of the spiritual pilgrimage of ordinary women in the early eighteenth century indicates a vital piety, marked by a deep devotion to Christ. They fully shared in the experiences of the revival movement, although their numbers indicate that the revival affected females more than males. However, because of the patriarchal society in which they lived, their contribution to the overall spirituality of the Christian Church in Scotland was not often appreciated at the time and has not always been recognised in Christian history. Their chief responsibility was expected to be within the home and family, although the evidence suggests that several women were breaking out of this mould and discovering a role within the wider community of church and society.

Connecting Links: The British and American Woman Suffrage Movements, 1900-1914

Charles D. Cashdollar, the author of The Transformation of Theology, 1830–1890: Positivism and Protestant Thought in Britain and America (1989), turns in this book to social history. He tells the story of religious life from the inside and from the perspective of the laity. By “reformed congregations” he means local bodies in several denominations sharing the theological heritage of John Calvin, including English and American Congregationalists and Presbyterians, the Church of Scotland, and some dissenting Scottish denominations. Cashdollar's sample is not statistically representative but is still broad, comprising 150 congregations. Because his broader narrative is about how congregational life changed under the influence of industrialization and urbanization, churches from rural areas, the American South, and the Scottish Highlands are underrepresented in his sample. Also underrepresented are poor or laboring-class people, except as objects of these congregations' ubiquitous mission and social service projects; these church folk were overwhelmingly middle class. Cashdollar's narrative centers on generalizations applicable across denominations and across the Atlantic. Foremost among these is the change from “piety to fellowship.” In 1830, for instance, the word “social” described the midweek prayer meeting; “by 1900, a church social implied tea and sandwiches, strawberries and ice cream.” Other themes involved in this shift to sociability were a growing expectation of luxury and elegance in architecture, furnishings, music, and the like, a demand for comfort and convenience, and an effort to make worship a worthy competitor in a growing consumer culture of entertainment. Accompanying trends included greater emphasis on privacy, a quest for efficiency and standardized business methods in church administration, and growing professionalization. Women's quests for usefulness and recognition in church life, another of Cashdollar's narrative themes, interacted paradoxically with professionalization, as it removed many women's opportunities for leadership as volunteers or church employees even as formal rights for women in church and society were expanding. Cashdollar's survey of congregational life manages to be both systematic and engaging, providing an impressive weight of evidence for his generalizations without burying the reader in a surfeit of detail. Especially useful is the foil provided by coverage of the established Scottish Kirk and its parish system. American readers might readily take for granted the idea of churches as voluntary associations; the Kirk provides instructive contrasts that highlight the many differences that the voluntary system made in church life on both sides of the Atlantic. There is, however, a missing link in Cashdollar's story. He presents congregations as “spiritual homes” intent on maintaining inner harmony and thus remaining almost entirely untouched by the famous nineteenth-century theological disputes over Darwinism, higher criticism, and fundamentalism. If Cashdollar's earlier work was intellectual history “from the top down,” and this present book is social history “from the bottom up,” where, we may ask, is the history “from the middle outward” that tells us of the differences that theological change made for the “spiritual homes” of congregations and, more important perhaps, the differences church families made in the battles of the theologians?